Prolog is a good computer programming language for dealing
with complex structural systems such as that presented by kinship. The following
applet will give you some experience with this.

You can load the existing prolog database by clicking on the "Kinstuff"
button. Enter a query in the first line, such as male(X), or mother(Mother,Child),
click the "Run Query" button, and the results will appear in the second
window.

When it first loads, the checkbox "All Solutions" is checked,
meaning that Prolog will present all known results to the query at one time. If you
uncheck this box, you can get subsequent solutions by clicking the "More?"
button.

You can modify the program in the top window, and these changes will be reflectedwhen you run a new query (including any syntax errors!).

You can email the program and the results by entering your email address in the second
line and clicking the "Email Prog/Results" button.

You can also load a prolog program located on the Ethnographics Gallery by typing the URL in the
second line and clicking the "Get URL" button, though there aren't any
at present other than "kinstuff.p". We will make other choices available
in future.

You can cut and paste a new program into the top window from a wordprocessor or text
editor. This is a basic prolog, but includes most of the powerful structural features.
It has no numeric capabilities. Equality is tested by eq(X,Y), and
inequality by neq(X,Y).